


Technology Liaison

by ZombieJesus



Series: ZJ Deathnotetober 2020 [4]
Category: Death Note & Related Fandoms, Death Note (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Deathnotetober, Gen, Light always has ulterior motives though, just a conversation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-10
Updated: 2020-10-10
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:02:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26937088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZombieJesus/pseuds/ZombieJesus
Summary: Light gets curious about what the Death Note is really made of and asks Ryuk. What happens when paper becomes obsolete in the increasingly digital world?
Relationships: Ryuk & Yagami Light
Series: ZJ Deathnotetober 2020 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1955044
Comments: 8
Kudos: 42





	Technology Liaison

“Ryuk, what exactly is the Death Note made of?” Light paused in his writing, swiveling his desk chair to face the shinigami lounging on his bed. It had taken no time at all for Ryuk to make himself at home in Light’s room.

“Eh?” Ryuk licked some apple bits off his chops. “Uhhh…lemme think.” He wracked his brain— or whatever shriveled up organ was up there— while tapping a long talon against his teeth. “I dunno.”

Light sighed, “You’re really useless, you know that?” He turned back to look at the Death Note, closing it to get a better look at the cover under his desk lamp. His curiosity had been piqued and now it was bothering him. “The pages _feel_ like paper but you said they continually replace themselves so it can’t really be paper.”

“Uh huh. Yup, I did say that.” Ryuk couldn’t remember saying that but Light was correct so he must have at some point. “Makes more pages when you fill ‘em up. Convenient, right?”

“And the outside cover…it feels like leather.” Light traced his fingers over the embossed white letters and the pebbly black cover. “Are there cows in the Shinigami realm?”

“What’s a cow?” Ryuk scratched his chin until he suddenly remembered. “Oh that’s right, that big animal that’s kinda dumb, eats all day, lazes around?”

“Sort of reminds me of someone else,” Light snickered. “But do you have any where you’re from? Or any animals?”

“Nope!” Ryuk tossed back another apple, crunching it loudly as he talked. “Nothin’ but dust and shinigami up there. Told you it was boring.”

“I guess it’s not leather then.” Light tried to scratch the surface of the notebook with the tip of his mechanical pencil but it didn’t make a mark. “And indestructible?”

“Naw, fire can destroy it. Don’t see what you’d wanna go and do that for though.” Ryuk eyed him warily. If Light burned it up then his precious fun would be over.

“Don’t worry, I’m not thinking of doing that.” Light tore off a piece of the Death Note’s paper and dropped it in his glass of water, watching it sink. “The paper doesn’t get soggy either, hmm.”

Ryuk floated over to look in the glass as well. “Whatcha care so much for? The notebook does what you want it to do. Pfft, never had a human be so curious about it before.”

“You’ve given others the notebook before?” Light looked up with real interest. He loved to hear that he stood out among Ryuk’s other humans. “Who? When?”

“Against the rules to tell you their names. Nobody real memorable, though.” Ryuk hovered in mid-air on his side, head propped up in his hand. “But, uh…it was probably several of your human centuries ago. Passed like a flash for us.”

“Hmm.” Light flipped back to the first page, which had been blank when he’d gotten it and was now filled with names. “The Death Note couldn’t have looked like this several centuries ago. It’s meant to look like a modern school notebook, from this era.”

“Nope.” Ryuk snapped his fingers and the Death Note in Light’s grasp suddenly morphed into a heavier tome, with gold script lettering on a red leather cover. “Looked like that.” He snapped again and it became a scroll of thick, rough paper, tied in the middle with a black ribbon. “And like this, the time before. Think the first time I dropped one down it became some kinda rock, hyuk hyuk. Had to be more careful where I tossed it.”

“A rock!” Light gazed at the Death Note in awe as it flashed through earlier and earlier iterations, until indeed there was a flat, square rock in his hand. “What did they do, carve names into it?”

“Uh huh. Took a little while and wasn’t as sneaky as what you got. You’re lucky huh!” Ryuk laughed and changed it back into the recognizable slim black notebook.

“Yeah, I guess so.” Light wasn’t really any closer to understanding what the Death Note was made of, but it wasn’t any substance found on Earth. “I wonder what will happen when nobody writes anything anymore. People use computers more and more these days, Ryuk. Eventually humans might forget how to write by hand at all.” He grinned at the worried look on the shinigami’s face, teasing, “Maybe in the future it’ll have to be a digital Death Note or you won’t get to have any fun.”

“Wha?? I don’t think the Shinigami King knows anything about computers!” Ryuk briefly stuck his head inside Light’s desktop computer, groaning at all the complicated wires and circuits. “Damn. Maybe I should bring this up at the next shinigami committee meeting.”

“Committee meeting?” Light giggled. “Are you serious?”

“We have ‘em once an eon or two. Justin Armonia sure has fun gripin’ about how lazy we are and how the Realm’s gone to hell.” Ryuk wasn’t sure another meeting was coming up anytime soon, though. “But Justin don’t know about computers either.”

“Sounds like your King need a human who does.” Light smiled and leaned back in his chair, an interesting idea springing to mind. “A human who isn’t afraid of your kind and could teach you about technology.”

“I guess so, but…well then they’d have to come to the Shinigami Realm and we’re supposed to send ‘em to Mu after we write their names.”

Light frowned slightly, pretending to be dismayed. “That’s too bad. Guess the shinigami won’t be able to keep up with the times much longer.” He turned back to the notebook, humming to himself as he got back to writing. _Any moment now._

“Uh…what about you? You’re good with that stuff, aren’t ya?” Ryuk poked Light in the arm hopefully. The prospect of not being able to come back and watch a human use his notebook—ever again!— was too awful to entertain.

“Yeah, but like you said, I wouldn’t be any good at helping the King if I’m in Mu.” Light turned on his TV to watch the news, acting completely nonchalant. “Pity.”

Ryuk was quiet for a while, looking between Light and the notebook and the TV. “Guess we’ll talk about that when you die.”

Light looked up with a slight smirk, nothing too obviously triumphant. “Guess so.”

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for Deathnotetober 2020 on Tumblr. Check me out there @kiranatrix.


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